Rep. Maxine Waters Inflates Sequester to ‘170 Million’ Jobs Lost

Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D, CA) had a dire prediction for America due to sequestration claiming that 170 million jobs would be lost as a result of the policy. But according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics there are only about 140 million jobs in the whole country.

During a press conference on February 28, Waters told reporters of a visit by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke who told members of congress that sequestration is not the optimal way to cut the federal budget.

Talking of Bernanke’s comments, Waters claimed that “if sequestration takes place, that’s going to be a great setback. We don’t need to be having something like sequestration that’s going to cause these jobs losses, over 170 million jobs that could be lost.”

Using Waters’ math, the US would lose about 30 million more jobs than it had to start with.

Transcript of relevant segment

Yesterday we did have Mr. Bernanke in our committee and he came to tell us what he’s doing with quantitative easing and that is trying to stimulate the economy with the bond purchases that he’s been doing because he’s trying to keep the interest rates low and create jobs–and he said that if sequestration takes place, that’s going to be a great setback. We don’t need to be having something like sequestration that’s going to cause these jobs losses, over 170 million jobs that could be lost–and so he made it very clear he’s not opposed to cuts but cuts must be done over a long period of time and in a very planned way rather than this blunt cutting that will be done by sequestration.

As you know in this committee we have all of HUD and HUD is responsible for so many programs that determine the quality of life for women and families. CBDG, a form of grant programs will be cut by $153 million dollars. These are grants to cities that help with women and children and low-income programs.

We also will cut the Home Program by $52 million if sequestration takes place, Native American Housing grants by $34 million, House and Choice grants $113 million, Public Housing–mostly single women in Public Housing–another $304 million, and homelessness, everybody claims to be concerned about homelessness and the growing number of women and children who are out their homeless but look they will take a $99 million dollar hit and on and on and on.

And so, we are here today, one more time, talking about women and children and families and how we can protect our women, children, and families and have a decent quality of life–sequestration will set us back. All of the gains that we have made will be lost with sequestration.

Warner Todd Huston

Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago-based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com, BigJournalsim.com and all Breitbart News' other sites, RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, and many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs across the country to discuss his opinion editorials and current events as well as appearing on TV networks such as CNN, Fox News, Fox Business Network, and various Chicago-based news programs.
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